Little kids and big historic moments …

The Poop reader Samatakah e-mailed yesterday suggesting a topic about parents who make sure their little kids get to see big historic events. She has a really interesting experience of her own from the 1970s that I’ll let her share in the comments.

thesun.co.uk

He’s even better live …

I learned today that my son’s pre-school will be watching this morning’s Obama inauguration, along with all the students in my wife’s high school. (They’re in the same building.) I doubt he’ll remember it, but I’m sure all the kids whose parents brought them to Washington D.C. this week will never forget.

My grandmother, who immigrated from Mexico in the 1920s, was pretty big about bringing us to big local events. She took my sister to see Jesse Jackson in San Francisco during his 1988 campaign for president — which seems considerably less cool now than it did at the time — and urged any of us who would come to cross the Golden Gate Bridge on the 50th anniversary. (She walked across it as a teen when it opened.) I also recall my parents being big followers of John Anderson‘s independent candidacy, and taking us to a whistle stop a few blocks from our house in Burlingame.

I’m not upset that I didn’t get to see anything more awesome than a third party candidate who nobody remembers, mostly because my journalism career has given me no shortage of interesting encounters. But I’d love to take my boys to at least one really big event in their youth — maybe the inauguration of Sarah Palin in 2012. (Kidding!)

Did you get to see any historical events first-hand? Have you taken your kids to any high-profile events? Did you have them watch the inauguration, even if they’re too young to remember?